Forum talk:Watercooler
Teething problems I used the "add new topic" box and my message seemed to disappear into the ether. Is it something I did? Is there a forum expert on Central we can summon to work out the kinks if I didn't do anything wrong? Respectfully, Zephyrinus 10:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC) :I hope there is such an expert - I've a feeling I've omitted something, despite the assurance at Starter Wikia that the two default forums are fully set up! Robin Patterson 13:42, 1 April 2007 (UTC) Adjustments I've adjusted the intro text, describing the new watercooler. :Needful things: ::A direct link to the old archives is needed. ::: Done! Here: old watercooler -- Zephyrinus 00:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC) ::::Good! Thank you. Bill 00:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC) ::Formating of the page. I've added a little color around the input box just to make it standout a bit, but there's an alignment problem that needs attention. I'll check to see what can be done there this evening. ::Bill 14:58, 6 April 2007 (UTC) :::I like the format improvements. But the essay? Looks like a bit too much already for the Watercooler intro. And there are three archives, not described by date but all clearly linked on the old watercooler page. Rather we should encourage people to use the Search function to find any word they think was in the old watercooler. --Robin Patterson 15:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC) ::::Agreed. Shortened accordingly. But I think we need a direct link to the archives, unless they are going to be incorporated here. Eventually, we will still need to archive things, so a master archive is still in order---and should include a link here. I'm going to recommend that we eventually dispense with ANY explanation of this at all. Simply substitute the new Forum for the old Watercooler in the sidebar, and place a link to the archives on the new Watercooler. I believe the calender should go somewhere on the revised main page.--Believe I know exactly where it would fit best. Bill 15:43, 6 April 2007 (UTC) :::::And while you administrators are adjusting the sidebar navigation box, should the "community portal" be removed? I would think this forum would serve the same purpose. It gets to the point where newbies don't know where to look for information, and if it's not up-to-date, it doesn't look pretty anyway. Good work! Zephyrinus 20:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC) :::::::Thank you for your thoughts, but the community portal serves a different purpose than the watercooler. Bill 21:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC) ::::::::There's room for both. I would rank 'Random page' below the others in importance. Chadlupkes 21:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC) Too much indenting is bad for the eyes, especially when someone adds more than necessary! Interesting flurry of comments above. I see some merit in Bill's plan to "substitute the new Forum for the old Watercooler in the sidebar, and place a link to the archives on the new Watercooler" - eventually. Infrequent users may still look for the old watercooler for a while, so I would be inclined to leave its sidebar link in place for a few months; maybe rename it "Old watercooler" and have a new sidebar link above it: "Forums". The page itself is accurate and up to date and clear for those people (with direct links to the archives and to the new forum) and can remain there for ever without affecting anyone else. But those archives really don't need links from here. Who would look at those links and know which archive "their" item was in? Encourage people to use the Search box! (And I doubt if we will need to do much more archiving if we can encourage everyone to remember "New subject, new page", one of the main benefits of the new forum structure.) Robin Patterson 05:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC) :I think the old archives are important for a variety of reasons. I also don't think its likely that people are going to search the archives for an old message that they know is there. I think its more likely that the archives would be browsed. To be honest, I haven't actually looked at the archives, so perhaps I should do that before I comment much more. Also, if you haven't already done so you probably want to write-protect the archives---we want to encourage people to use the new forum, rather than respond on the archives. But the archives need to be preserved if for no other reason than we need to have some fix on the historical development of the wiki. I'd personally prefer to see the New Watercooler referred to as "the Watercooler" rather than as the/a "Forum", simply because historically, that's what this has been called. I'm sure that other wiki have run into the same archival problem; might be interesting to see what others are doing with the Forum, and whether this idea is appearing on other wiki. :Also, While the Forum simplifies the layout, and makes it less cluttered (since the main forum page is really only an index), eventually we are going to have exactly the same problem. Even without the discussion itself, its likely that this page is going to become to long to be effectively browsed. It will be all right for the next several months, and perhaps it won't get crowded up for a full year. But sooner, rather than later, its going to become too full to be easily browsed. At that point, there will come a need to archive the index in someway. What's happening here now is a good thing, but it doesn't elminate the need for archiving old, out dated stuff. But all of that old outdated stuff is of continueing interest, needed to see just exactly how we got to whereever we are when someone wants to look at it. Bill 13:04, 7 April 2007 (UTC) Visible link to other topics I would like to create a link near the top that would help direct visitors to a list of past water cooler discussions grouped by topic. The Forums Index has them all. The only problem is when you try to put the category link in the text, it automatically places at the bottom of the Water Cooler page (where I missed it). I've drafted a "redirect" page that should do the trick. Let's put Water Cooler Index near the top and see what happens ;-) --TreeGenea3 06:53, 6 July 2008 (UTC)